


Marionette

by Ishti



Series: self-indulgent Lydia fic [1]
Category: Aveyond
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/pseuds/Ishti





	Marionette

Father says, tilt your head. Father says, curl your lip. Father says, marry Edward.

Father says to do as the ladies do, balancing books atop your head without dropping them, or bending your spine, or deflating your carefully-arranged ringlets. You must learn to walk before you learn to dance, and you must learn the dance as you would learn a lover. The dance is in your feet, in your back, in your neck, in your eyes. To master the dance is to control not from within, but from without, releasing your body like a soft puppet to waltz at the faraway command of your strings.

Lydia turned away from the mirror. Her pale eyelids hung low, lashes veiling her brown eyes. Plain eyes, as he ensured she knew, the plainness of which must be obscured with all of her guile. The tint of her high cheek bloomed false against her pallor in the dimly-lit bedchamber. That beauty, she knew, could only be accessed in the composed light of a lord's hall, or on his balcony below the moon, should the sconces sit arranged in a tasteful manner. There was so much for a young lady of ambition to regulate. He'd told her she was ready, that she was a master, but the roiling in her chest betrayed cognizance that she was not truly the puppeteer.

"Begging your pardon, my lady?"

"What is it?"

"Lord Wallace has arrived for tea, my lady."

"Very well."


End file.
